Covid-19

Debate between Steve Brine and Bill Wiggin

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I want to cover just three things. I will start by making a plea to Members of the House, to elements of our beloved media, and indeed to the great British public: step back at times, understand a little more, and possibly condemn a little less. We must remind ourselves that there is nothing normal here. This is an unusual event; this is a pandemic. Today we have heard calls for clarity—indeed, we hear that from the Opposition all the time—but in my experience of sitting on the Front Bench in a public health job, all too often calls for clarity are calls for certainty, and that is not how it is in a pandemic.

Just this weekend we heard that the university experience is not as billed. No, it is not—it is awful for freshers going to university and away from home for the first time, in a strange city with people they do not know. On the whole, however, universities are doing their best in an impossible situation. This will not be universally popular, but we should take great care about saying that universities should be refunding all those tuition fees, because those fees will keep universities in business, and keep them going so that they are there once this awful business is over. When we change the quarantine rules for this country or that on a Thursday, especially during the summer months, we see news bulletins full of people saying, “There was no notice.” No, because it is a pandemic. Of course there cannot be two weeks’ notice, because things change quickly in a pandemic.

I sit on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and we hear the arts sector say, “Give us a date. We want a date for reopening.” We would love to give people a date for reopening, but it would mean very little. We cannot be sure of where we will be in a month, let alone in three months when a big west end performance could be ready. We hear this all the time, but I ask Opposition Members to please think before they scream “U-turn!” Do they really want a Government who are not prepared to change their mind when the facts change? The previous Labour Government U-turned many times when the facts changed, and they were right to do so.

Policy making in normal times—I have done it—takes time. It is a slow process, and it is meant to be. We go through consultation and scrutiny—that is how normal policy making works—but in a pandemic that is not possible. In March some quick decisions were taken, and they are still being taken as the facts change. It will not be perfect, but that is what a pandemic will do.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that what we were doing in March was very different from what the Government are dealing with today?

[Steve Brine]

Unquestionably. The quick decisions that we had to make back in March were about whether we should have a national lockdown or not. We had to make those quick decisions, but we now know an awful lot more about the virus, and we have much better treatment. The only effective treatment that we know of comes from scientists in this country. My point is that we are not doing any of this to upset our constituents; we are doing this to try to keep people safe.

My second point is about Parliament. He is no longer in his place, but I agree with much of what was said by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). This is about consent, and as I said to the Prime Minister last Tuesday when he made his big announcement in the House, we must have the ongoing consent of the British public, or we are in trouble. I fear that that is slipping away. I am getting a constant stream of emails from constituents, questioning the decisions being made because they cannot see the evidence or logic behind them. They do not know where we are going or what is the destination. Yes, we have had a lot of statements from the Health Secretary, and I give him credit for that, but statements are not debates which, like tonight, become an exercise in how many Members the House can accommodate, and then the poor Minister of State on the Front Bench will probably get five or six minutes to wrap the whole thing up.

There is an old adage in this place that one should never ask a question to which one does not already know the answer, but I will ask two questions to which I genuinely do not know the answer. Perhaps the Minister can help me when he sums up the debate. Why are young children included in the rule of six—of course, they are not in Scotland? I do not know the answer to that, although many of my constituents have been asking me. Please can we hear the evidence behind that?

What is the evidence for the 10 pm curfew? I agree with what Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, said today about the knock-on effects. If we are going to have a 10 pm curfew in our pubs and restaurants, we will have to have a 10 pm curfew on selling alcohol in our off-licences and supermarkets. I would just say this on alcohol, as a former public health Minister: if people are so desperate to drink until 10 pm and then to get loaded with more booze in the off-licence so that they can carry on until 3 in the morning, what does that say about the unhealthy relationship that this country has with alcohol? It is an elephant in the room and we overlook it at our peril.

Finally, on the vaccine, when it comes, if it comes—and I pray to God that it does—could we please, Minister, consider the economic case for the vaccine? Yes, of course we have to give priority to our health and social care workers, but there is a covid generation that I mentioned with regard to university. They have had a rotten deal in the last six months and they are going to have a rotten deal in the next six months. I think that we should consider our young people—as the earners and the backbone of our economy—as the economic case for the vaccine when we get there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Since covid-19 began, sadly in Herefordshire we have seen 128 deaths and 1,008 people have tested positive. However, looking to France as an example of where we could be in just a matter of weeks, there have been 14,412 new cases in the last 24 hours, compared to just 5,693 in the UK. In the past week, 4,102 people in France were admitted to hospital, 763 of whom needed intensive care; here, there were some 1,727, with 262 on a ventilator.

Should the UK experience a similar fate, we must restructure how the Coronavirus Act works. In March, we did not know what we were dealing with and how best to manage a fast-spreading virus. The Italian handling of the crisis made us believe that it threatened to overrun the NHS. Parliament granted the Government emergency powers, which at the time was a sensible course of action. Six months on, things have changed. The NHS has been saved and Parliament is sitting.

The press report further covid plans that, as a Conservative, I find possibly draconian, curtailing freedoms, but I am sure we would give parliamentary approval for life-saving precautions. We need to remember that both sides of the House are united in wanting to beat this disease. I know we would be complaining if we sat on the Opposition side of the House, so we need to involve all MPs to get the necessary actions approved. Decisions are being made at ministerial level, such as closing pubs at an early hour, despite Public Health England saying that only 5% of outbreaks occur at pubs and restaurants, based on the advice from SAGE and various other experts.

Let us get those experts approving vaccines. We are only three months away from the final approval of the first vaccine. That is why we do not need a six-month extension to the powers granted by the Coronavirus Act. Vaccines for covid-19 are the key to eliminating the virus. The faster one is distributed, the more likely we are to protect the most vulnerable in our society, and that is the area we should be working on. Do we really need to wait till the end of the year? Do we need to follow the existing testing regime so religiously? Is there an opportunity to hurry things up? Perhaps we can look at people who feel most at risk and may be willing to volunteer for an early vaccination—and do not tell me it is impossible, because that is what we are always told just before it becomes possible.

Worldwide, there are a total of 320 possible vaccines in development. Today, roughly 280,000 trial participants across 470 sites in 34 different countries are racing to find a vaccine for covid-19. It is a global search, but we should be rightly proud of the British institutions at the forefront of these efforts. The UK Government have pledged £250 million to the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations, the largest contribution of any nation.

In total, four vaccine candidates have entered the final steps of the regulatory approvals process. The leader is the joint AstraZeneca and University of Oxford team. They have reached phase 3, which makes it the most advanced vaccine in development, and the study should be complete by December. The speed at which that is being done is outstanding, but we need to do more. The Government have invested £131 million to support vaccine development at the University of Oxford and Imperial College, on top of the £2.3 billion to GAVI and the wider international effort to fight the virus. In doing so, the Government have secured early access to a total of 190 million doses of covid vaccine candidates.

[Steve Brine]

That is all true, but is it not the point that, in the same way as we are all dependent on each other doing the right thing at the moment in the absence of a vaccine, we have a responsibility, as a country that leads on GAVI, to take on the anti-vaxxers and those who will deny a vaccine to themselves and thereby put others at risk? When the vaccine comes, we need to roll it out and we need to roll it out everywhere.

[Bill Wiggin]

My hon. Friend is right, but everybody who takes the vaccine reduces the risk proportionately for everybody else. It is all about the R number, as he knows. That is why the Government have been right to pre-book the vaccines: 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca and University of Oxford vaccine, 30 million doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, which is the next one in evaluation stage 3—we should have doses by the end of 2020 for that—and 60 million doses from a company called Valneva, whose vaccine will be provided in the second half of 2021.

The Government have a great story to tell on the work that they have made possible. We are all doing all we can to save lives, and we should now restore parliamentary democracy too. In these difficult times, my constituents want hope. After the sacrifices they have made, the vaccines that we have funded and the lives that have been saved, we all deserve it. We need to start voluntary vaccinating now, and we need to get life back to normal.